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Friday, December 28, 2007

You know how sometimes, someone will pretend to throw a dog's toy, and the dog will start running for it even though it never left their hand, and then they laugh and laugh about how dumb the dog is for thinking they threw a toy when they didn't?

I don't think that's dumb at all. If the person had actually thrown the toy - and 99% of the time, when they look like they're about to throw a toy, they do - then the dog would already be halfway to the toy by the time it hit the ground. By starting to run before the full throwing motion has happened, the dog gets the toy faster and makes more efficient use of her playing time. Not only that, but she has to calculate the direction the toy will be thrown before it even starts moving. That's smart.

We humans are the dumb ones, for not realizing the genius of dogs.

So next time you play a sport that requires retrieving a ball, don't be an idiot: if you suspect the ball might bet thrown, sprint in the general direction that it might go with your tongue hanging out. It's the smart thing to do.

P. S. Happy holidays to everyone. I hope you got and gave some good stuff, and saw and were seen by some good people.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

You know, I really just can't get into icicle Christmas lights. They're ugly and stupid. The worst part is that they don't look at all like icicles. Icicles aren't spots of light in a jagged zig-zag pattern with bundles of wire between them. At least traditional Christmas lights can be arranged in a nice row. Icicle lights hang in messy random dreadlocks of plastic that look like a fairy puked on your roof.

You know what would be cool though? Icicle lights that actually looked like icicles. Shiny smooth semi-translucent glass spikes of varying lengths that glow softly. I'm totally gonna invent these. But I'll have to call them "real icicle lights" so people don't mistake them for the fairy-barf variety. Sorta like how in the 80s, the cartoon about the Ghostbusters had to be called "The Real Ghostbusters", because some shitty cartoon with a talking bat and a talking gorilla who lived between the World Trade Center's towers and busted ghosts already took the name "Ghostbusters". It's exactly the same.

Oh, and anyone remember this stuff? I used to go nuts for crap like this. I remember they sold generic "slime" in vending machines that I'd buy every time I went to the mall. Kids these days, with their video games and cell phones, just don't appreciate the awesomeness of old fashioned toys. Like a jar of slime.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Premise 1: Coffee goes good with all breakfast foods.Premise 2: Eggs are a breakfast food.Premise 3: Eggnog is just eggs that have been nogged.

Conclusion: Coffee goes good with eggnog.

Seriously, it's good. I start 'nogging my coffee every year around this time, after realizing that while eggnog is good, it's hard to drink a whole carton of it before its expiry date. But not if you use any excess eggnog instead of cream.

Add some rum for an extra morning pick-me-up.

Starbucks will steal my idea, just like they did with maple coffee. You'll see. Then next year they'll come out with peanut butter lattes and butter-cheese macchiatos as if it was all their own genius idea. But you, dear reader, you know who the real genius is. Me. I'm the real genius.

Friday, December 07, 2007

If you want to be entertained for a few minutes, check out The Six Biggest Arseholes in Games. The article itself is funny, but even better are the comments, most of which are foul-mouthed British people going off on how much they hate different blocks in Tetris (particularly that "L" bastard). Here are some highlights:

Miketong: Any analy retentive tetris player will tell you the L block is nothing compared to those cuntish S block twins.

RP: I agree, the S blocks are bastards, but there's something distinctly arsehole-ish about that L-shaped twat.

Matthew:In terms of how they get along with the other blocks, they're real assholes. Racists even. You always have to cater to squareblocks, making sure there's a good space for them.

Baz: I'm gonna have to say that the square in tetris is a complete and utter cockhat. If it was an actor it would be Robin Williams.

Oh and I saw this movie called "I Know Who Killed Me", starring Lindsay Lohan, last night. Now, the title is supposed to be funny I guess, because usually when someone uses the first person, they are alive, so "I know who killed me" is sorta self-contradictory. It's also intriguing, because you think, maybe the person saying it is a ghost, and they know who killed them, so they haunt policemen and lawyers and jury members in order to bring the killer to justice (#35: Ghost Cop). Or maybe she's a zombie who wishes she could tell everyone who killed her, but can only really moan about brains and such (#36: The Mute Zombie Caper).

But no, instead, the movie is about a person who isn't dead, and doesn't really know who attempted to kill her. I guess "I Forget Who Tried to Kill Me" doesn't have the same ring, but it would be more accurate.

[SPOILER ALERT] Oh, and the word "me" is even misleading. At the point in the movie that Lohan actually says "I know who killed me", it makes absolutely no sense. [/SPOILER ALERT]

If you accidentally read the above paragraph without seeing the movie first, don't worry about it. It's not that great anyway. It's basically one pretty good idea that's dragged out over 1 hour of bad dialogue, characters acting stupid (one phonecall at the beginning of the movie could have saved everyone a lot of trouble), & vague symbolism with the colour blue, mixed with 1 hour of Lindsay Lohan stripping or having sex to music, but never actually getting naked. And she's really not even hot.

In conclusion, I Know Who Killed Me is a cuntish twat of a movie. Bloody hell.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

OK so I failed NaNoWriMo. Again. I think a major contributing factor is that, especially at this time of the year, life tends to get in the way of writing. As the middle of the year approaches, school assignments are due, and that means I have to mark them.

Speaking of which, except for the time commitment, I really don't mind being a TA and teaching a lab. I hear other TAs and teachers complain about their borderline-retarded asshole students all the time, but in 4 years of teaching, I haven't had one student that was a major problem. Not to toot my own horn, but maybe it's because I don't expect these people - who are just a few years younger than me, really - to be stupid little children. If a TA goes in with the mindset that they are wise old superior caretakers, constantly battling against an army of brats who only want marks they didn't earn, well, maybe that's exactly what they'll find. Psychology instructors in particular should know about the power of self-fulfilling prophecies.

This "holiday season" also provides another reason for failing to write a novel: A bunch of good video games are coming out, which has renewed my addiction to them. My latest fixes are Mass Effect and Super Mario Galaxy. Mass Effect is an amazing old-school sci-fi RPG, with voice acting and a story that are better than most movies. Super Mario Galaxy is just fun as hell, in the same way that Mario 64 was when it first came out. Its fucking-with-gravity premise sorta hurts my brain, though. And with all these new games, I'm stuck with the dilemma of having to choose between finishing old games before starting new ones, or abandoning the old ones and hoping I get bored enough to get back to them later.

Life is hard.

Speaking of life and video games, check out this clip, about video games, from the show "Life" (see how clever I am with segues?). It's sorta sad that depictions of video games and computers in movies and shows are still either stuck in the 80s, or warped to the future, or as is the case in this clip, a combination of both.

Next time I want to hide something, I think I'll install Windows and Excel on an old Xbox, reverse-engineer a game to run off the hard drive, have "levels", and activate Excel to open a file when the player beats the last level. Then I'll hope that nobody thinks to, you know, just open the file by clicking on it.

About Phronk

My name is Mike. Some people call me Phronk. I'm a person, and I live in London, Ontario, Canada. I write a lot, hence the blog, but also do a lot of other stuff, including: eating, reading, watching stuff on screens, sleeping, using web sites, and walking. I have a PhD in psychology, which is why I'm so smart and you have to call me "doctor." I research and analyze technology for a living. Now you know everything about me.